[Talk-GB] UK cities

Steve Doerr doerr.stephen at gmail.com
Mon Oct 17 16:13:50 BST 2011


On 17/10/2011 14:44, Ed Avis wrote:
> AFAIK, every city has a defined boundary, even if nowadays it is no 
> longer marked by a city wall. For 'town' this is not so, and you could 
> not take a strict approach there.

It may be possible in many cases if you take a historical approach.

Some time in the 19th century, civil parishes were created, and these 
were then grouped into urban and rural districts. Obviously, urban 
implies town. Some time in the 20th century, I think, civil parishes 
within urban districts were abolished, a situation which persists to 
this day. So you could delineate the town as the bit of a modern local 
authority that's doesn't have parish councils. Where you have contiguous 
towns within an authority, you would have to look at the historical 
parish boundaries to separate them. (Hurrah for our NPE layer.)

In addition, surviving parish councils over a certain population 
(10,000?) were allowed to call themselves 'town councils' and call their 
chairman 'mayor': so these parishes would also qualify to be classified 
as towns.

Doubtless this would leave some anomalies, but I think it would give a 
good first approximation.

-- 
Steve



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